I was woken up by the smoke invading my lungs, the heat of the fire licking my skin dangerously and I stood up from my bed still sleepy, my eyes half open and unaware of what was happening around me.
Just a few hours back I had fallen asleep, my mum had said goodnight and I had kissed my little brother on the cheek. Just a few hours ago but now, as I sat there, smelling the burned wood in the air my heart began to race. Throwing the covers off of me my bare feet touched the floor, its warmth burning my skin.
I hissed, my eyes scanning everything around me, hungrily searching for an answer, someone to tell me what had happened.
"Mum!" I shouted with all my strength, rushing to my door and kicking it open. My house felt as if it was empty. I rushed to my parents' bedroom hoping that I would find them there, not realizing how foolish I had been. There was no one there and the fire kept spreading from a place I did not know of.
Who set our house on fire? I wondered, why was no one rushing to help.
I stared at their room, feeling my whole body shake as I tried to put the pieces of this weird puzzle together. Looking down I gasped. There was blood. There was a huge trail of blood on the bedroom's floor and I followed it like a cursed path, hoping to find who the blood belonged to.
"Please no…please no…" I cried when I heard a scream. My feet came to a halt on their own and my head turned to where the sound came from. From the corridor's window I could see it all, I could see that not only my house was on fire but the whole compound. People were running, trying to save themselves and then as if I was in some kind of nightmare, shadows enveloped them, destroying them one by one.
I had never seen something like this before. My eyes wide, round and filled with fear stared at the sight before me as my body froze. The shapeless forms suddenly came to life as if someone was controlling them, rising from the ground and turning into forms of weapons. Whoever escaped the fire was bound to die from these creatures that smelled like death.
"Mum!" I screamed again, once I found the strength to move. I could feel myself slowly getting weaker, I could hear my coughing and the shoring of my screams as I lost my voice. Getting down the stairs I kept following the bloody path reaching the kitchen where I saw the first body.
It was my mother, laid on the ground, her body shaking as I noticed a stab wound in her abdomen. Her tired eyes spotted me, widened.
"Alice…run" she said with the little strength she had in her.
"Mum!" I screamed again. I had never called her with such agony, I had never wished to reach her so much, I had never hoped that she was well, that I would get to feel her loving touch more in my life than this moment. I rushed towards her but I was stopped. Stopped by one of the shadows, one of those creatures that I had seen outside, the ones that killed my people as if it was nothing. Catching them off guard, burning their homes.
Anger grew in me, my claws out as I attacked shapes thin as air, ripped their forms for mere seconds before I had them coming back at me, viscous and with the need to kill me.
"No…go…" I heard my mother say, she didn't want me to fight these things, she wanted me to flee, get out and live but how could I? How could I leave her here to burn?
I screamed, not because of the pain of my melted skin, not because of seeing my mother like this. Because I was angered, filled with rage. I needed to find the one who did this, the one sending these shadows and put an end to this. Save my mother and whoever was left alive.
The shadows made me spin, place me back and forth as I tried to dodge their attacks and I found myself turning, their darkness surrounding me, trying to keep me in their prison of no light. I clawed the air again, this time harder, finally seeing where they had made me go and I was back in the corridor, fighting with air.
"You." I heard someone and the shadows came to a halt. They still kept me from seeing what was happening in front of me but I was sure, from the bits and pieces I was able to see someone stepped forwards from the dark. "Why are you here?" he asked me, his voice surprised.
"Who are you? What did you do to my family! You bastard!"
"Why are you here?" He repeated his sentence, it was obvious he wasn't talking to me, he was talking to himself. He was shocked, terrified even. I didn't pay much attention then, to how he sounded, to the shape of his figure, to the context of his words. All I wanted was to be released by this shadow wall and reach him, rip him to shreds because I was sure he was the cause for all of this.
Everything after that happened in fast forward. Before I even knew it he was behind me, so fast my eyes didn't even realize he was there after he had striked me. His sword ripped through the skin of my back and I felt the burn of the poison. The same poison he had used to make my people disappear.
I screamed, falling back, losing my consciousness and realizing that soon I would too get lost in the flames. With half opened eyes I watched the shadows disappear and the collision I expected never came. I simply landed on a pair of strong arms. His arms.
He had caught me, he was the one.
Through my blurry eyes I couldn't see much, I could not distinguish the shapes of his face. He held my body tightly, raising me up and leading me outside. He had injured me, he had poisoned me but now he was trying to save me.
I tried to regain my consciousness. I tried to stay awake. Focus so I could see his face, see who he was. He was a monster.
He was the worst kind out there.
A killer.
A murderer.
He took everything from me.
"I am sorry." I heard him cry, his body shaking as he held me.
And then, I lost consciousness.